The Arab Republic of Egypt is a country located in North Africa and the Middle East, with Cairo serving as its capital. Egypt was home to one of humanity's earliest civilizations, Ancient Egypt, which developed along the Nile river and revolutionized writing, agriculture, urbanization, organized religion, and central government. As a transcontinental country which is simultaneously Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and North African, Egyptian culture and even genetics express this diversity. Due to its storied, coveted riches, Egypt fell under perpetual foreign domination from 342 BC to 1952, with the Assyrians, Persians, Macedonian Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Rashiduns, Umayyads, Abbasids, Tulunids, Ikhshidids, Fatimids, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Ottomans, the Albanian-descended Alawiyya dynasty, and the British ruling over the country for thousands of years and leaving their marks on the development of Egyptian culture and identity. Egypt became an early center of Christianity during the Roman era, but it was largely Islamized following the Arab conquest of Egypt in 640-641 AD. In 1922, Egypt gained independence from the British Empire as a monarchy, and Egypt ousted its monarchy following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which saw the Free Officers Movement restore the country to native rule and pursue a policy of Arab nationalism, ending Cairo's cosmopolitan status and resulting in the social and religious strife, political instability, and several failed wars with the neighboring Jewish state of Israel. In 1978, Egypt recognized Israel and pulled away from the Eastern Bloc, becoming a non-aligned country whose authoritarian regime drew closer to the American orbit. The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 briefly ended the period of authoritarian rule inaugurated by Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1952, but an Islamist electoral victory at the 2012 presidential election resulted in mass protests and the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood-aligned government in a military coup in 2013. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi presided over a reinstated military dictatorship infamous for its poor human rights record and corruption, and, while the government attempted to revolutionize the nation's infrastructure and tourism industry, the country continued to face severe economic hardships. By 2023, Egypt had a population of 110 million people, of whom at least 85% were Muslim and up to 15% Christian (95% of them Coptic).
Gallery[]
Cuisine[]
